


Collateral Damage

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [20]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anxious Hunk (Voltron), Bad Things Happen Bingo, Comforting Keith (Voltron), Destruction, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Homesickness, Injury, Prompt: Treasured Possession Destroyed, Sad Hunk (Voltron), Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24704914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Some things that are the least important to the bigger picture are the most important to the individual.
Relationships: Hunk & Keith (Voltron)
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k19 [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1554010
Comments: 14
Kudos: 218
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	Collateral Damage

All Hunk could do was stand there and stare. His left temple was throbbing from the hit he’d taken a few minutes before-- Shiro always told them to keep their helmets on, why didn’t he listen-- but even though Lance was calling for him from Blue’s ramp, he couldn’t get himself to move. 

All he could do was watch as his headband dissolved in his hands, the edges curling and turning black before falling into microscopic particles of cloth grit. 

“Hunk, come on! They’ll catch up any minute!”

Something pulled on his arm. Probably Lance. Hunk allowed himself to be brought towards Blue. He supposed he should be grateful; the acidic quality of the round that had hit him only seemed to be affecting the cloth, not his hair or skin or gloves, but it was hard to process anything else as the last of the orange turned dark. By the time they were both safely in Blue and Lance was taking off, the entire piece of cloth had vanished, leaving only grainy residue behind on Hunk’s gloves. 

“Hunk? Buddy, are you ok? Are you hit?”

Hunk licked his lips with a dry tongue. “My… my headband…”

“Dude, focus. Are you  _ hurt?” _

“... It’s gone…”

He heard Lance make a nervous noise, then his voice again, more dimly. “Guys, we’re off planet, but I’m worried about Hunk. He took a hit to the head.”

After that Hunk tuned out. He just stared down at his hands, stunned and distraught. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the part that wasn’t freaking out from yet another near death experience, he knew the headband wasn’t that important. Definitely less important than getting shot in the head. But possessions from Earth were few and precious, and that headband is special. Rubbing the grit between his fingers, Hunk despondently corrected himself. 

_ Was special.  _

He zoned out for the rest of the way back to the Castle. Yellow was trying to talk to him, trying to comfort him with images of sunlight and his family’s faces, but he pushed his Lion away. 

It was the Lion’s fault that they were in this mess to begin with; child soldiers in a millennia-old war. It was all the Lion’s fault. 

Yellow withdrew. Hunk could feel his hurt, but at the moment didn’t really care. 

Lance’s landing was bumpy. The jarring made pain flare up behind his eyes, and he still had them squeezed shut when Lance came to collect him. 

“Come on,” Lance said softly as he helped Hunk to his feet. “Coran wants to take a look at you.” Hunk let his hands fall to his sides and followed where Lance led, the churning in his stomach only growing worse with the movement. 

Hunk’s eyes filled with tears the moment they left Blue. Whether that was because of the pain from the hangar lights or from his most precious possession literally falling to dust in his hands, he couldn't say. 

The floor vibrated beneath their feet as other footsteps approached. A moment later a hand landed on his shoulder and Hunk looked up to see Coran, studying him with intent, concerned eyes. 

“There you are, Number One. Did you get hit down there?”

Hunk nodded with a sniffle. “It-- my headband is gone.”

“Is that where you got hit?” Coran asked gently. His eyes darted up to Hunk’s temple, where he assumed there was a mark or wound of some sort. “Up here?”

He nodded again.

“Alright, come along. We’ll get you all fixed up in a tick.”

Hunk followed where Coran led him. Lance hurried at his side, producing a nervous stream of chatter as they went. It made his head hurt more, but Hunk didn’t say anything about it. He was too busy trying not to cry. 

Pidge and Keith were waiting in the infirmary, both still in their armor from their own missions-- Hunk assumed Shiro and Allura were still on the bridge, coordinating the attacks with the other side. 

This whole thing was really complicated. Something about special resources, one side selling to the Galra, a civil war, succession issues, the whole gambit of political nonsense that the younger Paladins didn’t usually bother themselves about. The two of them would be busy for a while. 

Coran left Hunk at the door to prepare the pod. Pidge took his place, asking anxiously, “Hey, what happened? Are you ok? Does it hurt that bad?”

At first he didn’t know what she was talking about, until he registered the warmth of spilled tears on his cheeks. He reached up and scrubbed them away. 

“No, it’s not that. I just-- I lost my headband.”

Pidge looked at him blankly. Hunk blushed a little, but kept explaining. “I wasn’t wearing my helmet. There was some kind of acid or something in the shot and--”

“Acid?” Lance exclaimed, making Hunk wince. “Why didn’t you say anything? Are you burned?”

“No, no, it’s fine. Whatever it was doesn’t hurt, it just made my headband fall apart.”

“Fall apart how?” asked Keith, sidling a few steps closer to their little huddle. Hunk looked back down at his hands, and Keith’s eyes followed. 

“It just kinda… dissolved.”

When he looked up, Hunk was surprised at Keith’s expression: he had his kicked puppy eyes on, the ones he used to make back when Allura had been rejecting him, the ones he still sometimes wore when he was worried about Shiro or Lance’s teasing went too far. 

Before he could figure out why Keith looked almost as upset as he felt, Coran returned. “Alright lad, time to get changed.”

Hunk wiped his cheeks again and nodded. Who knew, maybe when he got out he wouldn’t be so upset anymore. 

As Coran ushered him towards the changing room, something pinged in the background. 

“You stay here, Lance,” he heard Keith say. “Me and Pidge will run the next attack.”

“Ten-four, thanks Keith.”

When Hunk came back out, minus his armor and plus a podsuit, Lance was still there, as promised. Almost immediately he was at Hunk’s side, patting his shoulder comfortingly. 

“It’s ok, bud, it’s not as bad as it looks. It’s just like taking a nap at two p.m. and waking up when it’s dark out. Disorienting as hell, but not the end of the world.”

Hunk sniffled, and Lance squeezed his shoulder. “Awwww, man, don’t be upset. Next time we go to the space mall we’ll hit some clothing stores and get you a new headband.”

At any other time he could’ve talked about this sort of thing with Lance. He understood Hunk’s homesickness better than anyone else onboard the Castle. But right now the only words that came to mind were a childish  _ I don’t want a new one,  _ so he chose to save it for later. When they weren’t in the middle of a battle. 

“I’ll be here when you get out,” Lance promised as Hunk stepped into the pod. “No worries.”

Hunk managed a smile for him. Then the door slid shut, and everything was dark and quiet. 

* * *

Fortunately, the battle was over by the time Hunk got out of the pod. 

Unfortunately, he was still just as upset about his headband as he had been when he went in. 

Pidge, Lance, and Shiro were in the infirmary when he came stumbling out, as well as Coran, who gave him a quick scan to make sure the pod had fixed everything it was supposed to. 

Then Shiro gave him a quick once over. The Black Paladin looked exhausted, so Hunk made himself stand a little straighter and put a small smile on his face, at least until he left. When it was just Lance and Pidge he let himself wilt. 

“Sorry about your headband,” Pidge said. Hunk had just finished putting his normal clothes back on and was anxiously toying with the ends of his hair. He felt bare without the familiar press of cloth across his forehead. “I’m gonna play some Killbot before lights out if you want a distraction.”

“Oh, I’m in!” exclaimed Lance, but Hunk shook his head. 

“Nah, I think I’m gonna head to the kitchen. I got that dough chilling that I have to deal with.”

“Right, good luck with that,” Pidge responded. “I swear, I don’t know how you manage baking in space. It’s complicated enough on Earth.”

“It’s possible you’re not remembering the scaultrite cookie incident,” said Lance with a teasing smile. 

Hunk ignored him and focused on Pidge. “You can hack alien technology millenia more advanced than our own, but baking is too complicated for you?”

“Listen, the fact that humans came up with three different ways to combine egg whites and sugar is just so wild.”

“It’s all just science and chemistry, Pidge.”

Pidge waved a hand at him, pulling a tablet from her hoodie pocket as they neared the entrance to the kitchen. “Yeah, yeah. Go have fun with your witchcraft.”

That made Hunk laugh, and the warm feeling persisted for about three seconds after the kitchen door slid shut behind him. Then the moving air from the ceiling vent brushed over his bare forehead and it all came crashing down.

He went to the fridge and pulled out the bowl of dough. He covered the counter in the lime green flour he’d found at the space mall. The dough slid out of the bowl with a wet plop, and he began to knead, slowly and methodically. The rhythms were familiar, almost comforting, letting his body go on autopilot while he worked through the thoughts in his head. 

Materially, it was just a headband. Just a strip of faded orange, fraying at the edges and trailing strings. But symbolically it meant much, much more. It was a piece of home, of which the Paladins had precious few, and it meant comfort, family, safety. 

And now it was gone, just like so many other things. 

“Hey.”

Hunk jumped out of his skin. Somehow he’d missed the sound of the door and Keith had appeared, already halfway across the room. 

“Dude!” Hunk blustered, vigorously wiping his hands on his apron. “Don’t sneak up on people like that!”

Keith huffed a breath that could’ve been a laugh. “Sorry, didn’t mean to.” He approached and perched on one of the barstools, right across the counter from Hunk. Once he got his heart rate under control, Hunk noticed that he was back in his signature red jacket, not his armor. 

“Battle over yet?” he asked. Mostly as a conversation starter, but Keith probably didn’t know that. 

Keith nodded. Bracing his elbows on the counter, he leaned forward and raised an eyebrow at the dough. “That’s a fun color.”

Hunk shrugged and went back to kneading. “It’s the flour that does it. I haven’t been able to find anything that works as well.”

“Right.”

For a few minutes they sat together in silence. That was something he really liked about Keith-- with him he didn’t always have to worry about thinking of something to say. They could have quiet, and it didn’t have to be awkward. 

After a while, though, Keith spoke up. Probably for the best, the dough was definitely overworked by now. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Hunk took his hands out of the dough and buried them back in his apron. “Talk about what?” he asked, staring down at the light green lump on the counter. “The pod fixed me up.”

“I meant about your headband.” 

He looked up, surprised, only to find Keith staring back at him, an utterly solemn look on his face. 

“Huh?” 

“You seemed upset about it earlier,” Keith clarified. His eyes dropped and skittered for a moment before returning to Hunk’s face. “So… if you want to talk about it…” he finished with a little shrug. 

For a moment all Hunk could do was blink at him. Keith wasn’t very touchy-feely, to put it mildly. So he wasn’t expecting something like this. Then again, he had offered…

“Ok,” Hunk sighed. “It’s just that… I know that it’s just a headband, not a big deal, but I’ve had it for a long time, you know? And--” his voice unconsciously dropped a little lower, “my dad gave it to me.”

He snuck a glance at Keith, looking for signs of disinterest, but there weren’t any to be found. He was looking at the counter, not at Hunk’s face, but the tilt of his head and the movement of his thumb over his knuckles told Hunk he was listening. So he kept going, with only one anxious swallow. 

“My dad was the one who taught me about mechanics and engineering. He liked to refurbish old cars, and as soon as I was old enough to hold a wrench I was in there helping him. I was twelve when we finished our first big project together, and when it was over he gave me the headband.”

Hunk paused and blinked back tears. They were dueling with the nostalgic smile edging at his lips, and he wasn’t sure which one was going to win. 

“He said his dad had done the same thing for him. He couldn’t wear it anymore, it was too fragile, but he still had it.”

The movement of Keith’s nod drew Hunk’s eye back to him. He looked thoughtful, and not at all like he was about to say something about getting a new one from the space mall. 

“So it’s like a family tradition?” asked Keith, sounding genuinely interested. 

“I guess so.” He sniffled, and wiped at his cheeks. Hunk felt a little silly, crying in front of someone like Keith, whose middle name was probably ‘stone-cold-badass’. But Keith didn’t look like he minded. He was too busy pulling something out of his pocket. 

It was a red bandana-- the same one he’d been wearing around his neck the night they rescued Shiro. Hunk hadn’t seen it since then; he had no idea Keith had brought it along. 

For a second Keith just looked at it. When he looked up, Hunk detected something in his gaze. Not sad exactly, but something close to it. Something older, something that had healed over but still ached, deep down. 

“My dad gave this to me,” he said. Once again he looked away, not making eye contact, but Hunk still heard the slight catch in his voice. “When I was a kid. Here, give me your hand.”

“Huh? Why?”

Keith considered him with narrowed eyes, then reached over and grabbed Hunk’s hand himself, stretching it out between them. Then he tied the bandana around Hunk’s wrist, ignoring how he immediately started stuttering out questions. 

“Wait-- what-- why-- hold on, Keith, you can’t just  _ give  _ that to me!”

“I’m not,” Keith responded casually as he tightened the knot. “I’m just asking you to look after it until we get back home. You know how reckless I am.”

“But-- but-- but-- your dad gave it to you. Don’t you need it? To remember him by?”

Keith smiled at him, and this time it wasn’t hard to see the sadness in it. It looked like the bandana felt; worn soft by the passing of years. “It’s been a long time, Hunk. I can remember him just fine.”

Hunk’s stomach dropped. It must’ve shown on his face, because Keith’s smile vanished and he dropped Hunk’s hand like it was hot. 

“I-- I probably said too much then, didn’t I? Sorry. Didn’t mean to make it about me.”

“No, not, it’s ok,” Hunk hastened to say. “This means a lot, Keith. Thanks.”

Keith offered him a tiny smile, looking relieved. “Don’t mention it.”

“No, really.” It was very important that Keith understood what he’d done, how much he’d helped. That cold, heavy spot in his chest was just a little lighter, a little warmer, and in times like this, that was worth a thousand battleship class Balmera crystals. “Really. Thank you.”

Keith’s smile grew into a genuine one. “I’m just happy I could help.”

Hunk smiled back. Then he remembered the dough, which while they’d been talking, had sort of… split. 

“That doesn’t look good,” said Keith as the dough oozed towards the edges of the counter. 

“Eh, I kneaded it too much anyway. Would’ve felt like chewing on rubber, believe me.”

Keith did his little breath chuckle thing again and hopped down from his seat. “I’ll help with dinner. I think Lance will revolt if we have to eat goo for the fourth night in a row.”

“Thanks again, Keith. For everything.”

Keith’s answer was another smile and a short, understanding nod. Then Hunk passed him a knife and a vegetable to chop, and their comfortable silence returned, wrapping around them like a blanket warm from the sun. 

And after dinner, Hunk went to the hangar, and apologized to Yellow. 

  
  



End file.
